The Crazies

In Pierce County, Iowa, the Sheriff David (Timothy Olyphant) is forced to kill the local Rory Hamill (Mike Hickman) that is threatening the community in a baseball game with a rifle and an insane behavior. Then his wife Dr. Judy (Radha Mitchell) examines another local, Bill Farnum (Brett Rickaby), who has a strange behavior. In the night, Bill traps his wife and son in the room and then he burns their house to the ground. On the next morning, David and his Deputy Russell Clank (Joe Anderson) are called by three hunters that had found a dead pilot in the Hopman Bog. David and Russell find a big airplane in the bottom of the bog. Sooner the army seals off the town and imprisons the population in tents and concentration camps. David, Russell, Judy and her assistant Becca (Danielle Panabaker) escape and sooner they discover that the plane was airborne with a biological weapon and crashed contaminating the water supply of the population. Further, there is no antidote for the victims that are doomed to die or become incurably mad. The quartet tries to find a breach in the containment to reach the next town, but the escapees are hunted by the army.

I usually hate remakes, but "The Crazies" (2010) is a rare case when the remake is better than the original film of George Romero. The tense plot is slightly different from the original story of 1973 that reflected the paranoia of those years of Cold War. Further, the plot focuses in the personal drama of David and Judy and not in the military action like in the 1973 movie. The screenplay, direction and performances are above average and this film worth watching. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Epidemia" ("The Epidemics")

What I really love about this movie, was the main character. He really did the whole movie for me.

Usually, in zombie movies or "OMG it's a horrible disease that spreads quickly!" movies, the characters wait around until the story forces them to act. But not in this movie! This movie's protagonist takes the initiative, he isn't waiting around to be killed once he gets the gist of things. He starts off trying to help legally, and then resorts to the illegal.

He was & is a well written character, his actor was fine as well but not something too amazing or interesting.

Pros:

Well written protagonist & support Cool and somewhat realistic plot Well done action scenes

Cons: It takes a bit of time 'till the story kicks in, but I believe it's worth the wait

When residents of a small-town begin attacking each other, the survivors are lead away from the area, but when they learn of others still trapped in the town they head back to rescue them before they fall victim to the bloodthirsty creatures.

This was a hard one to get a handle on as there's stuff to love and dislike here. Some of the stuff works, from the build-up in the beginning with the family being stalked in the house before it being set on fire to the gory ambush in the morgue, there's some nice action scenes early on that create a pretty creepy air especially when combined with the investigation angle. The assault on the camp as well as the action in the burned-out ruins of the town are rather nice and certainly big, fun action scenes that provide some nice blood and gore, and it gets a lot of fun out of an abbreviated ambush in a car-wash and a truck- stop encounter, but the fact remains that there's a lot of problems here. The biggest flaw is that the middle segments, after a strong opening, just drain the energy from the film as it continually repeats the tender family relationship that never once feels threatened or in danger, despite attempts to force the issue but it knowingly won't and just renders the whole thing pointless. Also, by dropping the number of encounters down it leaves the relentless pacing of the first half incredibly slowed down and dull afterward, drawing out the film a little too long in this section. Another big serious flaw is the complete and total lack of explanations for the toxin dropped in the town, which is a real mystery on all fronts in how it works, its' purpose and wherever the toxin came from. This is a major flaw which really hampers the film along with its other flaws as otherwise, this is a decent effort.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and children-in-jeopardy.

'The Crazies' (2010) is a remake of zombie-maestro George A Romero's 'other' film from the seventies. Most people only know him in connection with his Night/Dawn/Day/Land quadrology, but he also made The Crazies back in the early seventies. It was basically a zombie film by another name; instead of the undead you had people infected (in the non 28 Days Later kind of way) with a contamination which basically meant they go nuts (or crazy, basically).

If you've seen the other remake of George A Romero's 'Dawn of the Dead (2004)' then you should kind of know the 'look and feel' of the Crazies' remake. It sort of feels like a compendium piece to Dawn's remake, even down to having a Johnny Cash song over the opening credits.

We have a place crashing a toxic chemical which gets in a small American town's water supply, making everyone start killing each other. Naturally the Government is on hand to generally mess things up for the hapless townsfolk who have already started to murder each other in various grisly ways.

The story follows the sheriff, his doctor wife, his deputy and another girl as they desperately try to flee the town while being pursued by nut-jobs, the government and the paranoia that one or more of them may well be infected.

It's not the most mind-blowing of premises, but it does the job. It's not original enough to really stand out. I suppose the most different aspect to it is that the 'infected' or 'non-zombies' (or whatever you want to call them) do still retain enough intelligence to generally act a little difference to your average undead menace (you don't get too many zombies driving cars and firing shotguns at our heroes!).

If you're generally into your zombie movies then this one will do the job. It has enough of a budget to raise it above the bucketload of B-movies who are using the 'zombie craze' to sell itself and the cast, although nothing out of the ordinary, do enough to make us root for them.

Nothing too memorable, but nothing too awful and will certainly entertain any horror fan for an hour and a half.

I give the edge to The Crazies 2010. It was slower pace but had better character and story development . I found the actual (Crazies) to be a lot more menacing in the remake . And the ending of the 2010 film packed a punch